I have to agree with the point about valuing time. Since I'm a system administrator instead of a developer, how my company needs my times differ. It's not unusual to be contacted after hours on a thorny problem, or if one of my jr. admins can't handle a problem and it gets bumped up to me. So I really appreciate free time.

One fo the things I was trying to set up was a reward for "best documentation", since we were really lacking in that department from out developers. What we had was that best, as judged by peers, for the week got to leave an hour early on Friday. This added more then an hour of time, since Friday rush-hour traffic near my location is rather bad.

One hard thing is 'appropriate' rewards from both sides. Time is always appreciated, but from the PHB (pointy haired boss) side, that means that you're loosing time from your most productive people (the ones you want to reward). That's why gifts (tickets, gift certificates) and money are so often used - they are easy and don't have a negative aspect on performance. If I have one guy who can handle a problem, and he gets off, then there is no one covering, which is a problem.

One thing that can help is assigning projects. This may not work in a small shop, but in a larger one where there are lots of projects and lots of people, the "better" performers get rewarded by the more interesting projects. This takes a clueful manager (to understand what makes a project interesting), but works well in that you have people happy with what they are working on, and good people working on interesting (which can often be translated to "challenging") projects. Perhaps a choice among several good projects as a reward for finishing on well, but having that lassitude is rare.

One other thing is working environment - important performers get nicer laptops, etc. We give "management" level laptops (lots of bells and whistles) to important people. Makes 'em happy. Cubes with windows. But that is more long term and does have a definite seniority edge, as opposed to instant rewards for a well done job.

=Blue
...you might be eaten by a grue...